


August Prompts: Part 3

by Phantom_Ice



Series: Monthly Writing Prompts [3]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Blood and Injury, Brotherly Love, Dystopia, Far Future, Fear, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Running Away, Self-Sacrifice, life or death, running out of time
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-03
Updated: 2017-08-03
Packaged: 2018-12-10 20:45:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11699589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phantom_Ice/pseuds/Phantom_Ice
Summary: 03. Mirror, MirrorThe gear shifts. A bang echoes out. The wall lights up. Through it, two figures running forward, the hounds of human hell and ticks of the clock chasing after them.3...2...1Darkness.





	August Prompts: Part 3

Every ten years, one of the gears catches on an uneven notch caused by the steady fall of a leaking pipe. The gear falls gracelessly into the next with a loud echoing bang. The noise shakes the entire chamber, causing hulking vibrations to speed through the metal plating lining the floor, ceiling, and three of the walls until they ram into the glassy black surface of the fourth. 

For nine years, three hundred sixty-four days, twenty-three hours, and fifty-seven minutes every decade, that wall could be mistaken for solid black stone, glossy enough to see reflections in if there were any light in the massive chamber. However, for those three minutes that it takes the vibrations to dissipate, the wall picks up a new frequency and switches briefly to a new channel. The wall becomes the silver glass of a mirror, but it does not reflect the darkness of the room around it. Rather it emits its own glow that puts every nick and scratch of the metallic room into sharp relief. And through the mirror, a blurry scene of a world that surely does not exist. A world of grass and flowers and sunlight and sky. One where clouds move with the wind rather than being painted and programed. One where it rains even when the crops don’t need to be watered. One where the air isn’t recycled through hundreds of purifiers and a few malfunctions can cause your living space to become a vacuum. 

Or that is the version of events that would be told if anyone had seen the chamber in the past few centuries, for the mechanical door leading to it has long been cordoned off with a wide variety of alarms and locks spanning technological generations. The sliding mechanism is rusted shut and the inscription above where the handle would be had it been manual has been rendered illegible by the evolution and extinction of once ubiquitous languages. 

If any could read it, they would know that though the mirror seems to show utopia, the reality of it was very different. 

It was not built to be an invitation. 

It was built to be a warning. A reminder of why they could never return. 

…:::*:::...

7:35 am, year 1439, Customary time.

Absolute silence. 

\----

7:36

The gear shifts. The sound reverberates. The wall changes. Sunlight floods in. 

A field with puddles as if from a recent rainstorm. A gentle breeze, tranquility. Then, a sobbing scream, just audible. Was it really there at all? 

A head, struggling up from a far off patch of grasses. There’s another, pulling it up. From the metal chamber they are naught but blurry brown shapes in the distance. The second is pulling the first one urgently in the direction of the screen. They are running, now, in faltering exhausted steps. Their clothing comes into colored focus, greens and beiges, pants, a shirt, all plain. A hint of something red, maybe? 

The first is the more tired, or more injured, of the two, running with a dragging gait. The second urges forward, still holding the arm of the first and shouting hurried pleas indecipherable from this distance. They’re getting closer. The second one has tight curls pulled into a bunch on the back of… his?... head. The first has the same curls but in an uneven cut. 

Skinny, the both of them. Their clothes dwarf them. They’re of seemingly equal height and build, though it is difficult to tell as they stumble forward. 

\----

7:37

They’re closer now. Close enough to decide they’re both male and on the cusp of adulthood, maybe. The hint of red is clear now. It’s a heavy stain on their clothes and the first one’s hair. Blood. 

The shouts are more audible. 

“Arlo, please,” the second one begs. 

“I know, I’m sorry. Just go, Loc.” The second one, ‘Loc’, shakes his head almost violently and pulls again on Arlo’s arm, this time with both his hands as he runs nearly backwards. They manage to pick up a new rhythm and Loc turns back around to concentrate his effort again. The details of their faces focus.

They’re identical. Brothers, then, and twins no less. 

Arlo’s face is covered in bleeding scratches, marring gentle features. 

There’s more shouting and noises, but this time from neither of the boys. It comes from the horizon. There! Something that shines blinding white in the sunlight and moves quickly on large black tires. Inside and clinging to the doors people in nearly equally shining clothing. Anger is a haze around them. 

Arlo heaves a sob but continues forward, this time pulling Loc who has frozen in place. 

On top of the white beast, something bright and silver. 

\----

7:38

Boom!

Dirt explodes upwards. The huge silver gun swings sideways to aim again. 

They’re running shoulder to shoulder but Arlo stumbles and falls another step back.

Loc reaches behind himself blindly and grasps at a loose sleeve with a desperate tug. 

The people on the machine are audible now. They cry out in frenzied excitement, singing with the ancient and biological thrill of the hunt. The machine’s edges solidify. A truck like no one on this side of the mirror has seen in centuries. The mounted gun swivels.

Boom!

The dirt from the bullet lands on Arlo’s thighs.

They’re both panting loud enough to hear. 

Difficult to see against his dark skin, heavy bruises become clear along the length of Loc’s arms. Arlo’s hair is shorn completely off in patches and blocks his vision in others. 

Their arms and thighs are shining with sweat. Arlo’s breaths are starting to wheeze. 

Their eyes are brown. Loc’s are rimmed in red. 

The ends of their clothing are frayed and the stitches are large and uneven, easily torn. Loc has a scar running the length of his collar bone. They’re close enough to pick out the desperation in their eyes. 

They reach out. Loc darts his eyes to Arlo.

A shove. 

\----

7:39

Darkness. 

The wall has reverted to its glassy black state and the room has lost any hint of light. 

Heavy breathing. 

Gasps and the sound of skin against metal. Coughs. Footsteps scramble upwards, the only noise besides the gear this room has created in generations. 

“Loc?”

Silence.

“Loc! This isn’t funny, Loc!”

Silence. 

The footsteps burst towards the far wall. Hands bang in fists against it. The sound and frequency is not on a big enough scale to regain the last image. 

“Nononono. Lochlan! Lochlan! Please! P-plea-please.” Sobbing, sliding, a screech, more banging. 

An ancient alarm has been breached. The world is in a panic.

The door is forced open for the first time in recorded history. 

A slanted rectangle of light slides over a hunched up boy in torn clothing and torn skin gasping out sobs.

**Author's Note:**

> Oooo, I like this one. If anyone ever borrows it for anything, let me know. I want to read it.
> 
> Fun fact: Each story minute takes about a minute to read at average speed.


End file.
